Wednesday, July 14, 2010

If I should learn, in some quite casual way / Edna St. Vincent Millay

If I should learn, in some quite casual way

If I should learn, in some quite casual way,
That you were gone, not to return again —
Read from the back-page of a paper, say,
Held by a neighbor in a subway train,
How at the corner of this avenue
And such a street (so are the papers filled)
A hurrying man, who happened to be you,
At noon today had happened to be killed —
I should not cry aloud,— I could not cry
Aloud, or wring my hands in such a place —
I should but watch the station lights rush by
With a more careful interest on my face;
Or raise my eyes and read with greater care
Where to store furs or how to treat the hair.

---Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950)
from Renascence and Other Poems, 1917